So What Does That Have to Do With Macs vs. Adobe released Photoshop exclusively for the Mac in 1990, with a Windows version following over two years later. The Knolls pitched their project to two companies in Silicon Valley- Adobe and Apple-and the rest is history. Over 25 years ago (in 1988), John and Thomas Knoll built the first version of Photoshop on a Macintosh computer because it was essentially the only computer with the color display and capacity to handle the program they were building. In the early days of graphic design and digital typography (the early 1980s), the Apple Macintosh was the first computer to truly allow for digital typography. Digital Typography and Adobe Photoshop Were Born on the Mac More after the jump! Continue reading below↓įree and Premium members see fewer ads! Sign up and log-in today. So there is no real evidence for the old saying “Adobe software runs better on Macs.” Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and the rest were not designed to perform better on any particular operating system. It currently has no technical basis (in terms of performance and hardware) since Apple moved to using third party components from Intel and other companies.Īdobe has gone on record via their Adobe Hardware Performance White Paper to point out that the performance of their software comes down to specs, not operating system. In my opinion, the bias toward using Macs today is based on the long-standing history and tradition of graphic designers using Macs. It’s not a practical one (in my opinion), but it is a reason: t radition. You will, in fact, be judged by whether or not you use or own a Mac as a g raphic designer. In reality, these “marketing optics” do matter to some people, even if they shouldn’t. Many designers feel that if they can’t afford a Mac, people won’t take them seriously, so they’ll even invest in buying a used Mac that costs twice as much as a newer PC. Many designers find themselves turned down for jobs if they prefer using a Windows PC rather than a Mac. It’s astounding to me that the question of which operating system you should use is still a debate today.

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